A graduate of the École Polytechnique, Benoit Mandelbrot obtained his doctorate from the University of Paris and spent more than thirty-five years at IBM as a research scientist. Best known as the father of fractal geometry, he transformed our understanding of information theory, economics, fluid turbulence, nonlinear dynamics, and geophysics. He died in 2010.
“A heroic story of discovery. . . . Illustrate[s] what it takes for
great new science to be created.” —Stephen Wolfram, The Wall Street
Journal
“Mandelbrot had the kind of beautiful, buzzing mind that made even
gifted fellow scientists feel shabby around the edges. . . . The
Fractalist evokes the kinds of deceptively simple questions
Mandelbrot asked . . . and the profound answers he supplied.” —The
New York Times
“Fascinating and engaging . . . A compelling look at one of the
greatest multidisciplinary thinkers of the 21st century.”
—Wired.com
“Mandelbrot was a spell-worker who saw connections no one else did
and united apparently disparate phenomena. The mathematics of
fractals—and pictures of the Mandelbrot set—offered many budding
mathematicians their first taste of ‘real’ mathematics, in all its
beauty, utility and sheer unexpectedness.” —The Economist
“The delight Mandelbrot took in roughness, brokenness, and
complexity, in forms that earlier mathematicians had regarded as
‘monstrous’ or ‘pathological,’ has a distinctly modern flavor.
Indeed, with their intricate patterns that recur endlessly on ever
tinier scales, Mandelbrot’s fractals call to mind the definition of
beauty offered by Baudelaire: C’est l’infini dans le fini.” —New
York Review of Books
“If you love fractals, you will love this memoir. . . .
Mandelbrot describes his life and times with both introspection and
humor.” —New York Journal of Books
“Charmingly written . . . The memoir of a brilliant mathematician
who never thought of himself as a mathematician.” —Kirkus
Reviews
“Captures the enthusiasm as well as the memories of a visionary who
loved nothing better than studying complex multidisciplinary
concepts.” —Publishers Weekly
“[Mandelbrot’s] work has spread and impacted so many fields
that there’s nobody in the world who is broad enough to appreciate
the full impact. . . . [His] mix of gall and genius gave him
license to ask the questions no one else did.” —Thomas Theis,
director of physical sciences at IBM Research
“Mandelbrot brings us back to the sense of the wonder of things,
without giving up the logic.” —John Briggs, author of Fractals: The
Patterns of Chaos
“When we talk about the impact inside mathematics, and applications
in the sciences, [Mandelbrot] is one of the most important figures
of the last 50 years.” —Heinz-Otto Peitgen, professor of
mathematics and biomedical sciences at the University of Bremen
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